Across four acting categories, all twenty nominees were black.
What the Media Gets Wrong About Israel. The news tells us less about Israel than about the people writing the news, a former AP reporter says.

During the Gaza war this summer, it became clear that one of the most important aspects of the media-saturated conflict between Jews and Arabs is also the least covered: the press itself. The Western press has become less an observer of this conflict than an actor in it, a role with consequences for the millions of people trying to comprehend current events, including policymakers who depend on journalistic accounts to understand a region where they consistently seek, and fail, to productively intervene.
Transcript: Obama’s State of the Union address 2015. Here is a full transcript of President Obama’s remarks as delivered.

Generally-accepted examples include Coursera, Udacity, edX, Udemy, and, depending who you ask, even the Khan Academy.
The great deglobalizing. During a seemingly successful trip to Asia in November, Barack Obama announced several breakthroughs.

Among them was a promise that the United States and Asian nations would proceed toward the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, a free-trade deal that, if enacted, would create a free trade area with a total gross domestic product of more than $27 trillion. Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping also announced a new climate deal, the first between the two powers, which will commit both the United States and China to significant emissions cuts over the next two decades. The TPP would seem to be just one of many indicators of our growing interconnectedness with Asia, and indeed of the interconnectedness of the entire world. Today, riots in Missouri are immediately broadcast on Al Jazeera in the Middle East; Facebook boasts hundreds of millions of users in India; and a plane crash in Indonesia is tweeted about around the world within minutes.

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Politics from the ground up. What would it take for a quirky Spanish talk show host to start an organisation that, within a year, has the potential to unseat the only two parties that have run Spain since the fall of its dictatorship?

Surprisingly little, it turns out. Podemos (“We can” in Spanish) was founded early last year by Pablo Iglesias, a talk show host and political science professor whose ideas and populist rhetoric have helped launch the party out of relative obscurity and into the spotlight. Four months after the party’s founding, Podemos won a substantial number of seats in the European Parliament. Now, less than a year later, it stands a chance of beating Spain’s two establishment parties in December’s national election.

Oldest U.S. black college on verge of financial collapse. Inside the Ring: U.S. intel concerns about Russia-Cuba ties preceded Obama's sanctions deal. Months before President Obama announced on Wednesday that he is seeking to do away with decades of U.S. economic sanctions against the communist regime in Cuba, Russia concluded a security deal with Havana aimed at bolstering intelligence and military ties to the island dictatorship.

The Russia-Cuba agreement was announced May 16 when a memorandum was signed in Moscow establishing a joint working group between Russia’s Security Council and the Cuban Commission for National Security and Defense. The security agreement comes amid fresh U.S. intelligence agency concerns that Russia is taking steps to follow through on plans to conduct strategic nuclear bomber flights over the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea, possibly with the help of Cuba and Venezuela.
How Star Trek May Show the Emergence of Human Consciousness. Captain Picard: “How do we reason with them, let them know that we are not a threat?”

Guinan: “You don’t. At least, I’ve never known anyone who did.” With this brief, ominous exchange, the heroes of Star Trek: The Next Generation are introduced to one of their most formidable enemies: the Borg, a race of cyborgs whose minds are linked to a collective “hive mind” through sophisticated technology.
Global Warming History. Global Sea Ice Breaks Record High For The Day – Antarctic Sea Ice Also Breaks Record High For the Day. By: Marc Morano - Climate DepotDecember 30, 2014 11:20 AM with 2076 comments.

French Islamist mini-states grow into problem out of government control. A backdrop to the massacre in Paris on Wednesday by self-professed al Qaeda terrorists is that city officials have increasingly ceded control of heavily Muslim neighborhoods to Islamists, block by block.

France has Europe’s largest population of Muslims, some of whom talk openly of ruling the country one day and casting aside Western legal systems for harsh, Islam-based Shariah law.
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Democrat vs Republican. Origin of the Democratic and Republican parties The Republican party is the younger of the two parties. Founded in 1854 by anti-slavery expansion activists and modernizers, the Republican Party rose to prominence with the election of Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president.

History. Cluster of Concerns Vie for Top U.S. Problem in 2014. Story Highlights Poor government leadership was top problem in 2014Economy ranked a close secondNo issue averaged 20% or more mentions, a first since 2001 PRINCETON, N.J. -- In 2014, four issues generated enough public concern over enough months for at least 10% of Americans, on average, to identify each of them as the nation's most important problem. Complaints about government leadership -- including President Barack Obama, the Republicans in Congress and general political conflict -- led the list, at 18%. This was closely followed by mentions of the economy in general (17%), unemployment or jobs (15%) and healthcare (10%).
China's Moves in the South China Sea: Implications and Opportunities. Summary Editor's Note: Rodger Baker, Stratfor's Vice President of Asia-Pacific Analysis, recently returned from a trip through Australia, Micronesia and the Philippines.

The analysis below is drawn from remarks he made on the shifting realities in the East and South China seas — particularly involving China, the Philippines, Japan, Southeast Asia and the United States — in a keynote speech at a meeting of the Manila Times Business Forum. China's recent foray into the East and South China seas is not its first, but it is perhaps its most substantial.
Carbon dioxide emissions help tropical rainforests grow faster: Study shows trees absorb more greenhouse gas than expected. Nasa study shows tropical forests absorb 1.5 billion tonnes of CO2 a yearRainforests absorb more than half of CO2 taken up by vegetation globallyScientists previously believed tropical forests emitted carbon dioxide Researchers claim their findings emphasise the need to protect rainforests from deforestation to help counteract human greenhouse gas emissions By Richard Gray for MailOnline Published: 16:46 GMT, 30 December 2014 | Updated: 16:47 GMT, 30 December 2014 Tropical forests are growing faster than scientists thought due to rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Capitalism is killing America’s morals, our future. Stephenp.

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Russia tests 10-warhead ballistic missile. Russian Defense Ministry announced the successful test of the RS-24 "Yars" ballistic missile on Friday. "Test warheads hit their targets in the Kura testing range on the Kamchatka peninsula with pinpoint accuracy," said Col. Igor Yegorov a spokesman for the ministry. The missile was launched at 11:02 Moscow time on Friday, Yegorov said. "The adoption of the RS-24 ICBM with multiple re-entry warheads has increased the combat capabilities of the Strategic Missile Forces assault group to overcome missile defense systems, thus strengthening the nuclear deterrent of Russian strategic nuclear forces," Col.

Obama’s royal flip-flop on using executive action on illegal immigration. States That Make Voting Super Simple–or Stupidly Hard - Bloomberg Politics. States That Make Voting Super Simple–or Stupidly Hard. How Ebola spreads and started. West Africa is struggling with the worst Ebola outbreak on record, and two U.S. nurses have contracted the disease treating a Liberian man who died in Texas.
US Government Revenue Total, Federal, State, Local for 2011 - Charts. Germany: College is free there, even for foreign students. Why?
Germany: College is free there, even for foreign students. Why?

In This Election, Obama’s Party Benches Him. Photo. Barack Obama: the end of a love affair. President Barack Obama's Full Interview With NBC's Chuck Todd. Below is the full transcript of Chuck Todd's exclusive interview with President Barack Obama for NBC's Meet the Press. Mr. President, welcome back to your 12th appearance on Meet the Press.
Where's the 'affordable' in Affordable Care Act?
There's a reason Obamacare's authors formally named it the "Affordable Care Act:" The legislation was supposed to make health care reasonably priced.

Where To Stop Treatment For A Sick Patient. Obama's strategy of letting Putin hang himself is working. Moscow revives Red Square May Day parade. Say goodbye to capitalism as we know it - Keynote Speaker. 40 Maps That Explain The Middle East. Rage Against the Machine: A Brief History of Evil Movie Computers. Who Really Owns The Internet?
Cost of Treatment May Influence Doctors. US elections are rigged. But Canada knows how to fix them.
The five extra words that can fix the Second Amendment.